170: In Chapter 171, Zhang Du didn't press the power button; he disassembled the main switch into seventy-two sections.

"This time it put the master switch—"

"Into my hands."

Cheng Du's voice came from the maintenance passage.

Half of his body was connected to the National Class Transfer System mainframe, and a black career card squeezed out from the break, like a switch growing out of his bones.

[The Final Shutdown Person]

[Upon pressing: National Class Transfer System, Seven-Day Abyss Exam, and all Abyss career contracts will stop simultaneously.]

[Price: Everyone who maintains their life, identity, memory, and power through the Career System will be shut down as well.]

The twelfth question of the sky exam paper hung above Jiangcheng.

There was no standard answer.

Because this time, the Abyss had turned the answer into a button.

In the control room of the maintenance passage, the central black lever popped up on its own.

The top of the lever split open, revealing a dark red button.

There were only two words on the button.

[Shutdown]

Cheng Du's hand, connected to the mainframe, was being dragged toward the button bit by bit by black lines.

He gritted his teeth, his metal left leg jammed firmly into the ground.

"I'm not so old that I can't even control my own hand!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the national career network flickered simultaneously.

Across Jiangcheng, translucent warnings began to appear on many people's bodies.

Yu Xing's newly grown body lit up.

[Personality independent entity still relies on Career System static master axis for stability.]

Luo Wensheng's translucent legs lit up.

[Body fragments still in a state of temporary system assembly.]

The bodies of the old containment school students lit up.

[Reality reception procedure not yet completed.]

In the Return Application Station, individual temporary storage applications lit up.

[Waiting mechanism relies on career network to persist.]

Even Chen Ye's shield, Shen Tingxue's Ice Key, and Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear revealed slight ripples.

It wasn't as simple as losing power. Once the shutdown occurred, all the "people" who had not yet fully returned to reality would go offline with it.

The Abyss's voice rang out gently.

"Press it."

"The Seven-Day Exam will disappear."

"The God Head will be unable to be recalled."

"The Six Seats will be unable to be restored."

"Abyss career contracts will cease execution."

"You have always said you are unwilling to sacrifice others."

"Now, you only need to sacrifice everyone who relies on this machine."

"The rest will be safe."

Chen Ye cursed:

"You call this safe?"

Cheng Du stared at that button, his single eye bloodshot.

He knew better than anyone how many people this machine had hurt. He also knew better than anyone how many people had used it to stay alive.

Back then, the Mother of All Things tried to shut down the system and failed. Lin Shoushan couldn't shut it down. He himself had been stuck here for twenty years and hadn't been able to shut it down either.

Now, the Abyss had finally turned "shutdown" into a career and handed it to him. It was like mocking all Repairmans.

When Lin Jin rushed back to the maintenance core through the paper page passage, he saw Cheng Du's hand only half an inch away from the button.

"Don't press it!"

Cheng Du gritted his teeth and chuckled.

"Nonsense."

"If I wanted to press it, I would have done it long ago."

The black line on his neck tightened abruptly.

[The Final Shutdown Person refuses to perform duties.]

[Executing auxiliary pressing automatically.]

Dozens of mechanical arms extended from deep within the mainframe, grabbing Cheng Du's wrists, shoulders, and spine, pushing his entire body toward the button.

Lin Jin lunged forward, grabbing Cheng Du's arm. There were no rule prompts. No troubleshooting plans. Only a mechanical force so great it almost tore his bones apart.

Chen Ye rushed into the control room, using his shield to brace Cheng Du's back. Shen Tingxue's Ice Line wrapped around the mechanical arm joints. Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear pierced the ground, purple lightning exploding backward along the pressure pipes.

But the button was still getting closer to Cheng Du's palm bit by bit.

[Distance to shutdown trigger: 3 millimeters.]

Veins bulged on Cheng Du's forehead.

"You brat!"

"It's not that the master switch can't be dismantled!"

"But you have to find the seventy-two branch circuits first!"

Lin Jin looked up.

"Where are the branch circuits?"

"Right behind this damn thing."

Cheng Du pointed with his chin at the central button.

"The original design wasn't a master shutdown."

"It was for partial load reduction for the seventy-two Abyss entrances."

"Later, someone changed it to a one-key shutdown."

"Because one-key is most like a god."

Lin Jin immediately dove under the console. Behind the button, it was all black sealant. No interfaces. No labels. It was as if someone had deliberately poured sealant over all the lines to make them a single block, forcing any Repairman to only be able to press or not press.

He smashed open the first layer of sealant with his rusty wrench. Inside revealed dense bundles of wires. Every single one was vibrating. At a rough glance, they all looked the same. Cutting one wrong could directly shut off the career life support for a certain urban area.

"I can't tell," Lin Jin whispered. When he said this, he paused for a moment himself. In the past, the Hand of Rules would have told him. The target, the fault, the repair plan. Now, there was nothing.

Cheng Du turned his head, roaring until his throat cracked:

"If you can't tell, then ask!"

"A Repairman is not a god!"

"Whoever is using the site, they know best which wire connects where!"

Lin Jin looked up sharply and grabbed the communicator.

"Report status, entire city!"

"All anomalies, don't summarize, don't guess!"

"Tell me, on your body, on your equipment, on the door, which part is flashing, how many times it flashes, and what color!"

Qin Shanhe's broadcast immediately took over the whole city.

"Report as Lin Jin says!"

The first feedback came from The Hospital.

Fang Ning shouted:

"The newborn monitor's green light is flashing three short and one long!"

Lin Jin looked at the wire bundles. A thin green wire was pulsating with the same rhythm.

"Life support line, cannot be cut."

The second came from the Return Application Station.

Ye Guizhou's voice was urgent:

"The gray light on the edge of the temporary storage application form dims once every five seconds!"

A gray wire flickered in correspondence.

"Waiting mechanism line, preserve."

The third came from He Zhibai.

"The public ledger's black beads are reversing, frequency once every seven seconds!"

"Price Record line, preserve, but don't let it settle."

The fourth, Luo Wensheng.

"The original voice pen marks are losing characters, losing the signature first, then the time."

Lin Jin found an ink-colored thin wire.

"Record retention line, preserve."

More and more feedback flooded in. The old students said their selection panels were flashing. Su Yan said the message door frame was turning white. Tang Qi said the iron badge of Tang Qi was heating up. Inspector Han Su said the seal on Lu Changye's office was loosening. Gu Changye said the Terminal Processor's long blade was still vibrating, but the whole-class clearance hadn't been restored.

Lin Jin lay under the console, holding the rusty wrench in his left hand, his right hand completely numb. He could only use his teeth to hold the wire labels, sticking temporary paper tags on them one by one. Life. Identity. Memory. Waiting. Record. Accounts. Selection. These couldn't be shut down. Then what should be shut down?

Cheng Du squeezed out a sentence from between his teeth:

"Find the line that forces people to answer questions."

Tang Qi immediately shouted:

"The sky exam paper question numbers are jumping, cycling from one to twelve; every time it jumps, the iron badge on my chest burns!"

Lin Jin saw it. A dark red wire, hidden in the very center of all the wire bundles. It didn't maintain life. It didn't save identity. It was only responsible for pushing all unfinished questions toward the countdown.

"Exam forcing line."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou raised 002.

"Cut it?"

"No."

Lin Jin held down the wire bundle.

"It's entangled with the Abyss entrance rollback line."

"If I cut it directly, all seventy-two entrances will open simultaneously."

Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear illuminated the black branch next to the dark red line.

"Then dismantle the branches."

"Seventy-two of them."

Lin Jin looked up at the crowd.

"We need to press down on seventy-two load reduction valves simultaneously."

Chen Ye stared wide-eyed.

"Where are we going to get seventy-two people?"

Cheng Du grinned.

"Didn't we just dismantle over ten thousand people outside who don't have schools?"

Qin Shanhe's voice immediately rang out on the broadcast.

"Who is willing to learn maintenance?"

On the black open ground, the crowd was silent for a moment. Then, the first old student raised their hand.

"I can dismantle desks."

The second new student raised their hand.

"I can connect wires."

A logistics worker ran over.

"I've repaired the cafeteria steam valve."

Fang Ning shouted:

"The Hospital has manual valve diagrams; I can learn."

Su Yan raised their hand weakly.

"I can watch the door frame lines."

Tang Qi also stood out.

"I can watch for any resurgence of forced commands."

Seventy-two people were quickly gathered. They were not the strongest people in terms of careers. Many of them didn't even have combat careers. But each of them corresponded to a real-life site.

The maintenance passage projected seventy-two manual valves across the city. Next to each valve was a paper tag that Lin Jin had written temporarily.

[Preserve Life]

[Preserve Memory]

[Cut Exam]

[Slow Abyss]

[No Clearance]

[No Default Agreement]

[Retractable]

"Listen to me count."

Lin Jin's voice was already hoarse.

"Turn half a circle first, don't go all the way."

"Stop if you feel a counter-shock, don't force it."

"If someone's hand slips, the person next to them takes over."

The Abyss was finally no longer gentle. Whispers came from all seventy-two Abyss entrances simultaneously. Someone said to Su Yan that there were still children outside the door. Someone said to Tang Qi that refusing one more time would cancel the Seven-Day Exam. Someone said to Fang Ning that pressing it wrong would kill the patients. Others said to those old students that they had just graduated, and now they had to work for reality again.

Qin Shanhe's voice suppressed all the whispers.

"If you're scared, say you're scared."

"If you don't know how, say you don't know how."

"No one is allowing you to act tough."

"But don't let him press the button for the whole city alone."

Lin Jin began to count down.

"Three."

Everyone gripped the valves.

"Two."

Cheng Du's entire arm had already been pressed to less than a millimeter from the shutdown button.

"One."

Seventy-two people turned simultaneously.

Click!

The first turn, the city lights suddenly dimmed. Many career skills briefly extinguished. Some people screamed. But vital signs did not drop.

"Stop at half a turn!"

Lin Jin roared.

Seventy-two valves stopped halfway. The Abyss exam forcing line turned from dark red to black-red, twitching crazily. Cheng Du's hand was pulled down abruptly. The instant before the button triggered, Lin Jin lunged over, stuffing his chipped rusty wrench between the button and his palm.

Snap!

The wrench bent. It didn't break.

"Second time!"

Seventy-two people gritted their teeth and turned another half circle. This time, the sky exam paper flickered violently. The first twelve questions did not disappear. But they changed from a forced exam to unfinished public questions.

[Seven-Day Final Exam: Forced module disconnected.]

[All questions retained as pending crises.]

[Abyss contract automatic exam permission: Suspended.]

A shout of extreme suppression erupted from the crowd. It wasn't that they had won. It was that they had finally pushed the knife away from their necks by an inch.

Cheng Du's hand finally stopped. The final shutdown button emitted a piercing alarm.

[One-key shutdown failed.]

[Partial load reduction successful.]

[Mainframe entered manual bypass mode.]

Cheng Du fell backward. The half of his body connected to the mainframe was like a burnt-out cable, carbonizing inch by inch. Lin Jin supported him.

"Old Cheng!"

Cheng Du gasped for breath, surprisingly still able to smile.

"What are you shouting for?"

"I'm not dead."

"It's just that I really won't be able to walk in the future."

He raised his hand that hadn't carbonized yet and pointed deep into the console.

"The manual bypass needs someone on duty."

"The seventy-two valves need to be patrolled every day."

"Don't do any more of that 'last Repairman' nonsense."

"Make a schedule for me."

Lin Jin nodded.

"I will."

Cheng Du finally relaxed.

But just when everyone thought the twelfth question was stable, a soft sound suddenly came from the deepest part of the console. An ancient mechanical watch, sealed under the master switch, began to move for the first time. There were no hour hands on the dial. Only seventy-two markings. One of the markings had just gone out.

The smile on Cheng Du's face disappeared.

Lin Jin looked down and saw a line of old text engraved at the bottom of the dial.

[Abyss entrance manual bypass remaining: 71]

[For every entrance closed, one real-world Repairman must remain on guard.]

[The person on guard must not leave their post, must not die, and must not be forgotten.]

In the control room, everyone went silent. The Abyss didn't make them sacrifice one person to shut it all down. It had broken down the bill. One entrance, one person. Seventy-two entrances, seventy-two long-term guardians.

Cheng Du looked at Lin Jin, his voice sinking completely.

"You brat."

"This is its real question."

"It's not asking whether to shut down."

"It's asking whether humanity is willing to—"

"Create seventy-two new Cheng Dus with their own hands."